NEW YORK — Hilton is optimistic about the prospects of its new Undergraduate brand, with company executives outlining an ambitious growth path for the brand at this week's NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference.

Undergraduate by Hilton, an upper-midscale brand under Hilton, was officially launched this Monday, aiming to further expand its presence in the U.S. college and university market. This move follows Hilton's acquisition of Graduate Hotels in 2024. According to company executives, the brand's core goal is to offer an affordable lodging experience infused with campus energy and spirit.

Brand Origins: Inspired by Lewisburg

At a private event held on May 2 with company executives, industry leaders, and media, Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta shared the origin story of the Undergraduate brand and explained how it complements the Graduate brand.

"Why not Lewisburg?"

While visiting his daughter, who attends Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Nassetta noticed a lack of creative lifestyle lodging options in the area—exactly what the Graduate brand provides in larger college town markets. He joked that aside from a state prison and a Hampton Inn, visitors had few other lodging choices, let alone design-forward hotels.

"When I went to visit her, I thought, 'Why can't we bring a university-themed brand like this to Lewisburg?'" he said. "Why can't we cover every one of these smaller college towns? In these places, you need to offer something different."

According to Nassetta, this thinking gave rise to Undergraduate—Hilton's 28th brand. He anticipates the brand could "fairly easily" grow to 400 to 500 hotels over the next one to two decades.

An Extension and Evolution of the Graduate Brand

Undergraduate is an extension of Graduate Hotels, which was founded by Ben Weprin of AJ Capital Partners. Kevin Osterhaus, Hilton's global president of lifestyle brands, noted at the event that Graduate Hotels significantly tripled in scale during the pandemic before Hilton acquired the lifestyle brand in 2024. Currently, Hilton has about 60 Graduate hotels in various stages of development.

"Clearly, we needed a version 2.0—if we're going into markets that can't support the scale of Graduate, how do we do it?" Osterhaus said during a panel discussion at the forum.

Hilton Launches Graduate 2.0

According to Osterhaus, Hilton has been working on developing the Undergraduate brand over the past year or so, and it has some key differences from Graduate.

Graduate is a design-driven concept that "tells a vivid story of the market" through rich layers of detail and metaphorical elements, he explained. "But not every market can support that depth—there may be a ceiling."

In other words, Graduate tells college town stories in an immersive way through fully customized layouts and designs, while Undergraduate aims to deliver a similar concept on a limited scale in smaller markets.

"The two are closely connected—I think this allows us to truly celebrate the spirit of the college and university market," Osterhaus said.

He added that Undergraduate is also an easy-to-adapt model, employing a prototype design approach that offers owners greater flexibility.

Jenna Hackett, senior vice president and global head of lifestyle brand management at Hilton, reiterated to Hotel Dive that Undergraduate is intended to be a more scalable version of Graduate.

"Undergraduate allows other markets to access this experience while keeping Graduate in the full-service, experiential space," Hackett said. "We're not trying to change Graduate."

She added that the launch of Undergraduate actually protects the current positioning of the Graduate brand.